Pay2Play?

okay ive heard A LOT of stuff about ps3 i'd just like someone to try to confirm it.
so xBox360 you have to pay $50 live a year right?
some people have been saying after april people will be given a fee to play online with the ps3.
i've been thinking of getting a ps3 and would like to think ahead of time

thanks guys I guess i will get a ps3, already sold my wii but still have a few games lying around. i just didnt like Wii's Family Console concept. Romer318 i guess your right and seeing that a lot of people buy things from the store and buy PSN Cards they're already making enough money along with their tvs and other stuff

The rumors aren't completely unfounded. There's an article on IGN: http://http://ps3.ign.com/articles/104/1047600p1.html in which Sony execs talk about a premium online service that they will be rolling out in addition to their free-to-play service. However, they are being very cryptic as to what this means and what exactly they will be offering.

It's unlikely Sony would begin charging for online play such as Microsoft does with its Xbox Live service. This premium model would most likely center around additional video or game content, such as exclusive first-looks at trailers and demos.

When they first came out, they had 100% backward compatibility.
About a year later, to cut costs, the removed some of the hardware and replace it with software. This allowed most of the major PS2 titles to work.
But not long after that, all backwards compatibility was removed and has been gone for at least a year now.